TVSquad

Jesse Spano is coming back to TV. After guest appearances on CSI: Miami and Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Elizabeth Berkley is ditching the procedurals and heading over to Showtime. The former Saved by the Bell star will be joining Jennifer Beals, her costar in the 2002 film Roger Dodger, on Showtime's The L-Word for a multi-episode arc.

Word is, Berkley's L-Word character has a history with Jennifer Beals' Bette. The two went to college together and Berkley was the straight girl who got away. Perhaps Bette will have better luck the second time around.

My only hope for this pairing is that they can somehow manage to fit a Flashdance: What a Feeling / I'm So Excited dance-off into the plot of the show, thus bringing together the high points of both of these women's careers and officially making this the best casting decision ever.

Showtime's upcoming fifth season of The L Word will premiere first on OurChart.com, a lesbian-focused social community, according to BusinessWire.com. The OurChart.com premiere is slated for December 30, 2007 followed by the Showtime premiere on January 6, 2008. The choice is no coincidence, as co-founder and CEO of OurChart.com, Ilene Chaiken, is also the creator/producer of The L Word.

This is, regardless of anything else, another example of how technology and the new online media is becoming more and more intertwined with traditional television viewing.

Marlee Matlin and Jennifer Beals are getting closer on screen, then they have been off screen.
Their characters may have just met each other on The L Word, but their friendship spans nearly two decades after meeting on a trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Although they never mention being part of the mile high club, the show forces them to take their real-life friendship to a whole other level as only a love scene can.

In a recent TV Tattler interview about whether its easier to do it with your real life best friend on TV, Beals replies, "Oh, it's horrible. We laugh hysterically the whole time. It's horrible, it's horrible. I try to be professional, and she looks at me and gives me one little look of mischief and we just lose it, and it takes forever to shoot."

Interesting...

Marlee Matlin is joining the cast of Showtime's The L Word. She'll play "a fiery artist who catches the attention of Jennifer Beals' character, Bette Porter," according to Showtime execs. In 1986, Matlin won an Oscar for playing a deaf student in the movie, Children of a Lesser God. Lately, though, she has been doing all sorts of (great) guest appearances including Desperate Housewives and Law and Order: SVU, and she has had a recurring role as 'Joey Lucas' on The West Wing.

Season four of The L Word is set to premiere sometime early next year.

Writers of The L Word are including the show's fans in a very unique way. They've started a 'fanisode' contest where fans team up with writers to script an episode one scene at a time. Each week, the writers will announce a scene mission on their website and fans create it. Then fans vote on which submissions they like the best. It's a process that repeats itself each week until an entire episode is created out of fan-chosen and fan-created scenes. However, writers are not guaranteeing that the particular episode will air.

The fans whose scenes are elected will receive prizes, mostly in the form of gift certificates or a piece of schwag from The L Word set. At the end of the competition, which is March 31, one of the previous winners will be randomly chosen for e-mail mentoring from one of The L Word's writers and a $1,000 gift certificate to Saks.